THE TOLL OF THE WILDERNESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2975, 22 March 1911, Page 90

THE TOLL OF THE WILDERNESS.

By M. J. Phillips.

Beau Apperson, they called him; what irony the nickname was now! Ho had been lost for days in the Michigan wilderness. Hunger had worked its will of him. His clothing was in tatters ; his unkempt hair hung low on his forehead ; his face was covered by a growth of rough beard. The brilliant sun, which, peered at him out of a cloudless sky, struck an intolerable radiance from the snow. It did not warm his chilled limbs; its mocking rays had dulled his eyes with snowblindness. Be was of a party which had been deer hunting in the scrub, miles from a settlement. From the first, game had eluded his rifle, though the others readily secured their quota. They had gibed at his ill-luok; there was something of malioe in their laughter. He felt they were jealous of hds social and financial success, and that they resented the ruthless methods he employed in reaching his goals. Handsome, a courted bachelor, a millionaire at 35 by hi® own efforts, Apperson was not accustomed to failure. It galled him. Gn the closing day, when the guides had gone, he slipped away for one last try. By sundown he was lost. As the cold stars came out, he shouted and filled his rifle, hoping to attract the attention of some homeward-ranging settler. Echo answered him at firstecho, and then the long-drawn huntingcry of a wolf; and the wet hand of fear closed round his heart. He had never known fear before ; but now it was with him constantly—a child of this dreary, hostile waste which seemed biding its time to freeze the ebbing life out of him. In the days that followed he plunged doggedly abeadi, wandering in a wide circle. At night he huddled over a fire, which was always flaring up intolerably or dying down to feeble embers. Now he was at bay. He had thrown away his gun; he had used his last match to kindle his fir© the evening before. At sunrise, he shuffled onvvard, half delirious ; but before midday sheer weakness caused him to fall, and the last strand of willpower snapped os he struggled to his feet. Jeff Thompson found him then. He was whispering curses at the wilderness

as the weak tears rolled down his cheeks. Thompson bore the wreck to his cabin. Apperson was almost starved; frost had nipped him, and snow-blindedness was severe. Yet, thanks to the ministrations of the settler's wife, and to his own constitution, his recovery was rapid. Apperson had seen few backwoods women. He believed that all were faded and ugly, like the calico dresses they wore. The wife of his rescuer changed this impression. She was neither faded nor ugly, and she' did not wear calico. She was young, slenderly rounded, and pretty, arid she moved in her little moccasins with something of the noiseless grace of the furred creatures of the barren. Thompson, a swarthy man with the saturnine quiet of desolate spaces upon him, spent few daylight hours at the cabin. He had traps to tend. He carried his rifle on his journeys; there was not enough venison salted down for the winter. The season had closed, but gamewardens seldom penetrated so far into the wilderness.

Apperson learned that lie had wandered nearly 40 miles. Thompson's was the last outpost in the barrens, 20 miles from a settlement. Life there was lonely for a woman. Sometimes Mrs Thompson accompanied her husband on his trap-line; and deer-hunting was no novelty. She had little desire to leave the cabin now; the city man, with his talk of people and plays and books, gave her fascinating glimpses into the world which revolved beyond her horizon. Apperson donned the clothes which Mrs Thompson had mended, shaved with the trapper's razor, and felt his own man again. He was grateful to Thompson for saving him fram an unpleasant death. He would show it by forwarding a substantial cheque when he got back to the city. In his selfishness, he did not dream that gratitude could be expressed in other ways—by concealing his marked admiration for Thompson's wife, for instance. So he let the admiration shine in his eyes and give caressing tones to his speech. Mrs Thompson was a good woman—still, she was flattered by the regard of this man who was so evidently a personage. She parried his words and glances demurely, yet with instinctive skill. All in all, it was a harmless little flirtation, made zestful by her clever avoidance of close quarters. For so innocuous an affair, it had an abrupt ending. Apperson, one afternoon, had seized Mrs Thompson's hands; and at that moment Thompson shoved open the door. The trapper paused on the threshold, one hand pressing the door back. Great flakes of- snow sifted in about him. There was no privacy in the low cabin, since the partitions were merely of cloth. With a backward motion of his head he beckoned his wife outside. The door closed behind them. Tumultuous thoughts rushed through the city man's brain. Thompson did not like him, he kne v v. From the day, a week before, when the settler had found Apperson in the wilderness, he had been contemptuously unfriendly. Doubtless there would be trouble now.

Apperson stepped swiftly to the armrack on the wall, and jerked a heavy revolver from its holster. Satisfying himself that it was loaded, he thrust it into the bosom of his shirt. Then he waited. The delay was but a short one. The murmur of voices ceased. The door swung _ open, and Mrs Thompson came in, looking at Mm coolly as she passed. The trapper paused in the , doorway. 'Gome!" he said to Annerson. Something in that forbidding face made hesitancy 'impossible. The millionaire slipped Into his mackinaw and pulled on bis cap. He looked toward Mrs Thompson. He wanted to say good-bye—to make some sort of explanation : but her back was turned and her husband was waiting grimly. With a shrug he went out. It was scarcely 4 o'clock, but low-hang-ing clouds were smothering the light. It was snowing with a windless quietude that betokened a heavy storm. The wide, slow-dropping flakes shut them in like walls of white. The woodsman led the way down the blurring trail. He vouchsafed neither word nor backward glance. Apperson's mind buzzed with conjecture. What did Thompson mean to do? Where were they going? Already they had passed out of sight of the cabin. The wilderness, with its rotting stumps and scattered jackpine, encompassed them. Except for Thompson, he would be hopelessly lest. He had already become confused as to direction. Lost? He rushed forward to claw the settler with trembling hands. "Thompson—Thompson !" he chattered. "You aren't going to take me out here and lose me, are you? You wouldn't leave a man to—to die in these cursed barrens?" Thompson shook him off. "Shut up!" he interrupted impassively. "I wouldn't leave a dog out here tonight—not even a two-legged dog!" Apperson felt a surge of thankfulness. He followed at the settler's heels, almost with joy. The fellow did not mean to abandon him. Nothing mattered, so long as ho was not left to face, like a wounded beast, the silent; leering wilderness. They plodded on for an hour. The great 'flakes sifted down. The snow had risen to mid-calf, and walking had become difficult. Apperson grew tired; a sense of irritation rose in him. Thompson had no business treating him like a criminal. What had he done to deserve such incivility ? "Thompson," he demanded sharply, "where are we going?" Apparently his guide did not hear; at any rate, Thompson did not answer. He simply walked straight ahead into the ever-shifting curtain of snow. He seemed to be tireless. Hour after hour he advanced—slowly, it is true, but without pausing or faltering. Apperson struggled along behind, drenched with sweat and gasping for breath. His knotted legs bent under him. Every niusole complained. How he kept goiag he did not know; but he was

determined not to ask the woodsman to halt. At last they struck into a road. It was no longer necessary to climb knolls and avoid fallen trees. The going wai much easier. Sullen dawn was breaking when Thompson paused and faced the other man. "There's town/' he announced, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward a few huddled lights. "A train leaves in a couple of hours; better take it!" "Suppose I don't?" queried the city man defiantly. He was smarting under the treatment he had received, and the nearness of civilisation restored his arrogance. The trapper spat reflectively. "Suit yourself," he replied. "I don't care. If you was a real man, and tried to make love to my wife, I might be worried; but you ain t. You think you're a devil of a feller, and you're harmless as a house-cat!"

"Am I, now?" sneered Apperson. "And why?" Because you've lost yer nerve," was the calm response. "You can make money, an' go to the op'ry; but set you down in the scrub, away from a shack, and you'd die of fright. This is a man's country up here, an' you ain't a man. You're just an amachure —a crooked little amachure. I find you ready to each .'n, and I take you home. How do you pa/ me? By try in' to steal my wife!" "I didn't!" replied the city man hotly. "Well, you tried to make her dissatisfied, an' that's the same to me. A cur bitin* the hand that feeds it is a gentleman alongside you !" Apperson clinched his fists. "See here, Thompson " he began furiously, but the other cut him short. "I ain't got time to listen. I got to get back. But here's something to remember me by, you sneak!" He struck Apperson in the face, knecuing him backward into the snow. Then he turned in the direction whence he had come. Appei'ison got to his feet, murderous rage in his heart. With fumbling haste he drew the revolver and aimed at the woodsman's back; but even as he did so, he knew that he would not fire. Thompson was right—he had lost his nerve. He would never look at the barrens again without terror falling coldly upon him. He was in truth less than a man. The wilderness had taken its toll! He dropped the revolver. Wiping tha blood from his face with his sleeve, he stumbled toward the settlement. —Munsey's Magazine.